Yemeni women attend the showing of a film in Sanaa March 3, 2014 about "child brides", which are quite common in the poverty-striken and tribal country of Yemen, where barely pubescent adolescent girls are forced into marriage, often to older men. It is estimated that 14 % of girls in Yemen under the age of 15 are forced into early marriages and 52% of girls before they turn 18, and frequently to much older husbands according to rights organisations. Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images.

The German government agreed on a proposal Wednesday to outlaw child marriages after finding more than 1,500 cases of immigrant minors having adult spouses.

The Central Register of Foreign Nationals has documented a surge in child marriages in recent years. As of July 2016, 1,500 minors of non-German background were registered as married, including 361 under the age of 14.

The largest group of child brides, 664 minors, come from Syria followed by Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Children do not belong at the wedding altar, they belong in school,” Justice Minister Heiko Maas said Wednesday. “We cannot tolerate any marriages that might harm the natural development of minors.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet wants to annul all marriages where a participant was under the age of 16 at the time of the wedding. Courts would further have the power to nullify marriages involving a person between 16 and 18 years of age.

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